Impatient to Mount and Ride

It was 233 years ago this Friday night-Saturday morning that left us still today polishing the copper bottoms of pots and pans. Yes, we learned to revere Paul this day, as Paul Revere made his famous midnight ride (without the Raiders, too). [Interesting side note: while Mark Linsdsay was lead singer of Paul Revere & the Raiders, they were founded by organist Paul Revere Dick. Can't imagine why he shortened his name. And one of Paul Revere's co-riders in 1775 was Samuel Prescott, yes, of Prescott Bush lineage. So there's dicks all over this story.] The Paul Revere tale wears thin when you realize much of it is made up by Longfellow's famous poem. To make a longfellow story short, Revere wasn't a sole rider (he met Samuel Prescott along the way at 1 am after Prescott left his fiancee--go Samuel!), the "two if by sea" part was really "two if by Charles River," which isn't much of a sea and I can't quite make the reach to a "two if buck Chuck" joke, and of course he stopped along the way for dalliances with women (wait, that's the Harpo Marx version, but I don't mean to blow my own horn by getting too allusive, that just makes everything too soupy and you'd duck out of reading this). Revere always felt sour grapes about not making it to Concord, where the Minute Men were in a jam. But he did help preserve the nascent revolutionary fervor, teasing the Red Coats not by yelling, "The British are coming!" but yelling, "The British are breathing heavy, but their tax on Viagra leaves their muskets swinging low."